With 2020 coming to a close (applause) I’m looking at the new year with hope of fresh beginnings and new experiences. 2020 wasn’t all bad; we’ve learned a lot about ourselves and have brought clarity on our perspectives on life in many ways and will help shape us in the year(s) ahead. But 2020 was no walk in the park, no barrel of laughs, no travels to new and fascinating places. It was a year to teach us something and make us appreciate what we have, which was maybe needed, but I’m now ready to carry those lessons with us into new chapters and new stories that are made special with friends, family, travel, and adventure.

As with any new year I’m looking at what I want out of my year. How to make a better me, a better mom, a better wife, a better friend…and I have a few things that I want to try to do in this year ahead.

• Continue reading: aim for one book a month
• Read one affirmation a day
• Begin a five-year journal; I got a very pretty one off of Buy Nothing and plan to begin on January 1st. I found some question prompts for each day but I really just want to have something that myself or Reese could look back on one day
• Start the day with one full 8 oz glass of water
• End the day with one full 8 oz glass of water
• Call or write a friend or family member (not on my normal speed dial) once a month
• Get Reese to brush her teeth at least once a day
• Walk a minimum of 5,000 steps a day
• Be in bed by 10 pm

Some of these will be easier than others but its funny how they are never the ones I would have expected. I think good things are coming in 2021 and I’m going to do my best to be ready for them, to appreciate them, and to enjoy them.

Chelsea

It’s literally just a day away and that is crazy to me. But I’m prepared. Gifts are wrapped and under the tree. Our dinner plans for Christmas have been selected and groceries have been picked up. We’ve already blown through all of our cookies from the cookie exchange but we have a grasshopper pie ready to go in the freezer. We are hanging low just the three of us for Christmas Eve and will go out to see lights after dinner. Sarah and Lottie are joining Christmas Day after we open our own presents at home. I’m excited for Reese to open up her presents this year and what she thinks of it all. It snowed Monday night and got our jackets on to go out and see it. Snow is gone now but it was exciting while it came down. And we have walked to get holiday treats on occasion which have been both fun and delicious.

To update on my updates from a few weeks ago…

• We did go wine tasting outside at Novelty Hill and it was a surprisingly enjoyable time.
• After receiving my ID in the mail, I then lost it again a week later (not a good idea to no longer keep it in my wallet, haven’t been since Covid). So vision appointment is scheduled for 12/30 so that I can get a new ID before Bryan leaves for South Carolina.
• Although I was totally predicted to win the last week of Fantasy and head into Playoffs, I lost by a long shot thanks to my opponents stellar game and didn’t end of making it.
• Fitnessblender game is still going strong and I just finished Day 16 and am really enjoying it. I’m set to finish the current program January 6th or 7th.
• We did do the cookie exchange and had quite the platter of cookies that resulted from it (good thing for Fitnessblender).

We’ve enjoyed lots of parks recently and the girls are getting good at guilting me into taking Lottie with us after school which ends up having once or twice a week. Reese has been doing a lot of jumping on the couches lately, some puzzle work, and still tons of reading. She is eating much better at dinner with us and literally jumps for joy when she gets to open up her (3) advent calendars at night. She’ll be sad when they are over tomorrow.

Bryan’s been busy getting up to speed with this new project he will be working on. We will be tag teaming working and watching Reese during this “break”. My work has been slow but steady which is appreciated during this time of year, especially when I am still running around picking up grocery orders and getting gifts together.

Can’t believe the holidays are upon us and this crazy year is almost over!

Chelsea

• Reese went through a phase of being on EST and essentially took all of 0.5 seconds to fall asleep at night and now we are back to somewhere around a 30+ minute bedtime routine that may require requests for pats on the back, blanket, to be tucked in, Wubba, Elmo, crackers, water, and last night it was toast.
• Reese at least is starting to learn the magic of the color changing night light so that she cannot wake up until after her light turns green; 5:30 am to start but we will be pushing that back until at least 6 am. I have actually had some large chunks of sleep myself lately which is the first time in forever and makes me feel so much better during the day.
• Reese’s latest favorite foods would be: corn (on the cob is a requirement), toast, chocolate, cookies, pizza, pepperoni, ground beef, sometimes broccoli, rice, sometimes salad.
• We still walk to school on every non-rainy day (which has been most days recently) and this girl is getting much more difficult to push up hill. She is still barely 23 lbs though, whereas Lottie is now more like 27 lbs. There has only been one day in months now that Reese asked to ride in the car instead of the stroller to school, and that was today.
• Both Reese and Lottie are exactly 33.5″ tall per our growth chart.
• The conversations Reese now has with us and Lottie are impressive. She knows so many words and knows how to string them into logical sentences and phrases.
• She regularly tells her dad where to go; “go shower”, “go run”, “go to sleep”, “go work”.
• Reese is currently climbing all over the couch and up and over her bed rails, thankfully during the day and not during the night.
• Reese likes to bring me my coffee, eeek!
• Reese currently is transfixed with Shaun the Sheep, so much so, we are now ready to go back to Sesame Street when we can. Although, we both love the show as well.
• Reese is really into books lately. She still prefers reading to herself and turning the pages but occasionally we get to read a book to her.
• Reese is liking Christmas lights a lot. She loves our tree and taking the ornaments off, she is obsessed with Frosty and she likes it when Google sings her Christmas songs. When the first wrapped presents were found under the tree she just sat next to them for about 15 minutes, obviously very eager to open them.
• Lately nap time for us has been mostly a miss. She either will not take a nap for us or it is like all of 30 minutes. On the other hand, her main teacher at school told me just last week that they usually have to wake her up at the end of nap time because she sleeps so long. Go figure!
• Reese is fast, on the playground and just in general. She is quickly learning to climb ladders and has started experimenting with going down slides head first.
• Reese likes to push on our bellies and say, “SQUISHY”.
• We think she doesn’t like Bryan’s beard and that is why she often times tells him “no kisses”.
• She likes drinking bubble water.
• We’ve been doing these cheap chocolate advent calendars we picked up from Trader Joe’s. We each have one but Reese helps each of us open it and then gets to eat all three candies. Go figure. She completely understands the premise of opening only one a day.
• Reese still says “I’m working” when she is in the process of going #2.
• She must have hands on Lottie at all times.

Chelsea

December = the last month of the year = the end of 2020! Generally it means the holiday season and Christmastime, of which I am excited about, but more importantly I am looking forward to the new year. Oh yes! There will be plenty of champagne popping and bazookas at this year’s New Year’s Eve at the Miller’s, in stark contrast to the extremely late takeout dinner in the Detroit airport hotel of New Year’s Eve 2019…hopefully.

But in all seriousness, this holiday season is going to look different than any holiday season in the past for me. I’ve never not spent Christmas with one or the other side of the family. This means that we have to come up with traditions, festivities, and merry making all on our own. It’s so different this year, not being able to celebrate the holiday season with friends and family. This is normally a season filled with Christmas parties, gift exchanges, sweets, song and dance galore.

We are still trying our best to feel connected to those we care about. I have set up a socially-distanced, no-contact holiday cookie (or treat) exchange for our friends here for next weekend. So far, we have about six different households participating and I’m looking forward to still having a holiday cookie platter to enjoy as we approach Christmas, looking forward to our friend’s creations, and mainly looking forward to having an excuse to say “hello” to one another from afar. It’s been ages since I have caught up or even just seen so many of our friends. We have two different kinds of cookies that I want to make for the exchange next weekend; neither of which I have made before.

But this weekend we are looking at a forecast of sunny skies and slightly warmer weather so that should mean a run, a walk, some playground jaunts and the like. We have reservations for an outdoor wine tasting at Novelty Hill on Sunday with Sarah and Lottie and those two are coming over for our resurrected Friday night happy hour/takeout. I’ll have a boatload of laundry to do since our dryer has been broken for a week now but at least we are getting a brand new one delivered and installed tomorrow for us.

I’ve got most of my Christmas shopping done. Another stark contrast to the past few years where the holiday season has just sprung up on me completely unprepared. This has also meant general shopping for yours truly (clothes, skin care, a new photo printer, etc). We have our tree up and have started a nightly advent calendar filled with chocolate from Trader Joe’s for all of $1. I never knew they had these at TJs but Reese is all about it. We have one for each of us but somehow Reese ends up getting all three chocolates every night. Thankfully they are tiny. I’m trying to become a morning person, as Reese continues to wake up most mornings at 5:30 am. And we have continued our morning walks to school, which have been wonderful lately with the sunny weather we have been having. Although that girl is certainly getting more difficult to push up our big hill.

And in other positive updates, my ID was returned to me by a kind soul in the mail this week. Thank goodness because the last thing I wanted to do was make a vision appointment with the current status of things. I received my pay raise and it’s the highest it’s ever been (shockingly). And I’m most likely making the playoffs for Fantasy Football which is shocking since I started out 0-4. This is in large part thanks to stellar games lately by Metcalf, Cousins and Michael Thomas’ return. We’ve cleaned up the backyard quite a bit and broke out our patio heater. And after my mom indicated that she was going to start a Fitnessblender program, I decided I would do it myself as well and have kickstarted a new four week program that I’m actually looking forward to doing.

I definitely feel like things are starting to look up around here and am really trying to stay positive and motivated. Wasn’t so much that way even a week ago so let’s rally to the end of the year.

Chelsea